...now, the PM’s aides will tell us ahead of time how many questions he intends to take. If the number is four, the journalists who are present — be it outside Rideau Hall or at G8 Summit in Mexico or in a barn at a mine in Northern Quebec — will gather out of earshot of the PM’s aides and decide amongst themselves what topics we wish to quiz the PM about and then figure out who will do the quizzing....
most of the time, the press secretary calls on the names on the list. That did not happen on Friday in northern Quebec. Though the Chinese journalist’s name was on the list, the moderator, Julie Vaux, the deputy director of communications, did not call on that journalist. That was wrong of Vaux and not in keeping with the practice negotiated between journalists and the PMO over the last few years. But the reaction of the journalist – shoving Vaux or pushing any staff around — is also way out-of-bounds. As I mentioned, the tradition is, if you’re getting shut down by the PMO, just start hollering your questions. The PM will almost never answer anyway to a hollered-out question but you will have put your question on the record.

So the press gallery thinks that China People's Daily bureau chief should just have shouted out his question about Canada's policy on foreign investment? And been ignored.
And that would have done what, exactly?
As Dawg concludes:

Now the Canadian media are all about telling power to truth—and Li Xue Jiang found this out the hard way. It must have made him a little homesick.

2 Comments:

.. yes, the rugged man Stevie photo op went off.. plenty of pics fell like manna from our Conservative masters n mistresses & media to our hungry eyes. David Akin, Michael den Tandt et al gifted us with explanations.. and the warm cuddly Harper, his posse and wife have returned from the windswept tundra..

The indelible images for me are the RCMP gripping a Chinese reporter, Steve in red hoody, Steve trying to lie on his stomach with a gun, a scary looking press secretary named Vaux.. and Joe Oliver in a business suit out on the tundra

My current connected thought about 'rugged man' Steve is that this same man.. his PMO posse - paid by us, his cabinet, our lawyers, our bureaucrats are engaged in hiring independent research to establish that the root cause of missing, assaulted or dead indigenous women and children .. is the victims themselves.

Now why that warm cuddly factoid was never raised while the gang was up in Inuit territory seems odd. Instead it was all about resource extraction, reporter protocol, ATV's, jobs, stealth snowmobiles, and what dirtbags the loyal opposition are.

We watch the Stevie & Laureen 'live in Ottawa' reality TV show in the news now .. kind of a whacked out 'Leave it to Beaver' knock off.. they go on holidays, or cuddle pandas & stray cats.. then, just when we start to fall for the script and the endless echo of a fantasy action plan.. Steve and Ray (Three's Company) Novak decide to attack the indians.. again.

Or whack a secret deal together with the Chinese, or lie to our faces about election fraud, or pensions, or .. well its never ending.. This is TV right ? Its not really real ? The Conservatives aren't really spying on us ? Canada and Canadians would never get hosed like this eh ?